Unbeknownst to most people, the prohibition on drugs like opium, cocaine and marijuana is inherently racist. Indeed (and I'm barely exaggerating the following comments), opium prohibition happened so poor white female wouldn't be lured by Chinese men on the West Coast, cocaine got banned because Black men became sex-crazed maniacs that raped poor white women and marijuana gave Mexican immigrants superhuman force.

The War on Drugs as we know it now though started under Richard Nixon under what many people believe to be his Southern Strategy, i.e. try to win voters that would have been part of the "Confederate States." Since the Civil Rights Act had ended legal discrimination instituted a climate of "fear" among Democrats that felt abandoned by their government - yes, the DEMOCRATS were the racist ones until Kennedy.

But like alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, drug prohibition has been a miserable failure - and that's putting it lightly. The "land of the free" now host 25 percent of the world's carceral population - proportionally more than China last time I checked. Most of these people are first-time offenders for having infitesimal amounts of pot (mostly) and are sentenced more severely than many murderers or fraudsters. 

This needs to stop right this instant. If tobacco, which serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever, is legal, then so can every single other drugs. Plain and simple. With the War on Terrorism, the War on Drugs has been the single worst violator of civil rights; it completely butchered the 4th amendment by basically reverting the burden of proof, making it nearly impossible for people to get back their property when it gets seized.

This would not only reduce crime - buying pot or coke would be like buying beer - but would also increase public revenues (if such a thing is desirable). The Cato Institute estimated those revenues to be $64 billion about five years ago. As late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said: the state has no business in the nation's bedroom - whatever happens between consenting adults is their business alone.

What do you think? Should the War on Drugs keep going until it's won? Should drugs be decriminalized like in Portugal? Should ALL drugs be legalized?

janus : Let me understand you correctly.  You're not being sarcastic or facetious with that first remark?  You honestly believe in those things you've said?  You're 31?

Let's look at what alcohol does: The CDC estimates 88,000 people die each year in the United States from alcohol-related fatalities in 2014.  40% of all automobile fatalities are alcohol-related and 40% of all pedestrian fatalities are alcohol-related.  50% of defendants accused of murdering their spouse were reported as drinking or with alcohol in their system at the time of the crime.  3 million (That is a 3 with six zeroes behind it) victims of physical abuse or assault report their attackers were drinking or drunk at the time. 

That's a lot of damage being done by a legal, federally-regulated intoxicant.

The CDC also reports, as of 2014, that 480,000, almost half a million folks, die from tobacco-related events.  Cancer, disease, and so on claims another half a million people.  

That's a legal, federally-regulated business as well.  

So, you want to put drug users on mind-altering substances like meth and coke out in the open.  You want that stuff to walk around and be available at any time.  I wouldn't want my mother living next to people who smoked meth for fun on the weekends.  I wouldn't want my kid to live next door to someone who does heroin whenever their bill comes.

One type of crime (drug possession) would go down to zero, obviously.  But what's the cost?  If more people have to die and people who should be prison walk around free, where's the justice in that?

If it's illegal to have pot, don't possess pot.  Instead of changing the rule, why not... I dunno.... follow the rule.  

I agree with PM Trudeau, but recreational drugs won't stay in the house.  That stuff goes outside.  Imagine a bar somewhere where you can get a beer, a shot, and meth.  You think people get violent now?  Wait until they're tweaked out of their minds with alcohol and heroin and see what unfolds then.

Decriminalize pot.  Sure.  I'm fine with that.  Fine the heck out of people and keep things moving.  The rest of it has no business out in the market.

warmaker : Yes, I am dead serious; the Internet is your friend and it's historically factual. Don't forget that racism has been rampan ever since this country was found. Canada too banned opium because of the Chinese - it happened after white rioters destroyed Vancouver's Chinatown. The ban happened under then-Labor Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King (as shown by a senatorial committee in the early 2000s I believe).

And I know all about the ills caused by tobacco and cigarettes... and yet why aren't THEY illegal?

"Instead of changing the rule, why not... I dunno.... follow the rule."

So you would have turned in your Jewish friends to the Gestapo? You would have told US authorities about people of Japanese ancestry that were hiding from deportation in the early 1940s? You would have turned in a fugitive slave? Be careful what you ask for.

Interesting fact: meth, just like crack cocaine, is a byproduct of the War on Drugs. Since illegality doesn't change people's desires (merely making them illegal) they simply try to find alternatives, often more dangerous.

Who exactly are you hurting when you take drugs besides the faceless pharmaceutical industries? Nobody? OK!

Cradily is love : and the drug cartels (they complain that legalization in Colorado is hurting their business), and the government (DEA, courthouses), and the military-industrial complex...

Legalize drugs. Destroy the black market. Stop funding terrorism. Stop filling prisons with non-violent offenders when rapists go free and people who have been deported 5 times still come back to murder innocent women. Then you won't have all the gangs that are funded by drug sales either. I don't buy that the state will make tons of money in taxes though. That's the dumbest argument for legalization ever. Legalize this! Then tax it and regulate it. More laws. More lawyers. Freedom to be all the more controlled. I just don't understand humans sometimes.

Ferdinand : I do not buy the money argument either; it fact it is pretty silly. Just look at tobacco; taxes in some states are so high that people either buy "bootlegged" ones or go to another state, both decreasing the revenues.

My view on this issue: Keep the war on drugs going. We don't need meth and crack and other awful drugs on the street. People should be staying away from that nasty stuff, not using it and slowly killing themselves with it. I don't understand why people can't just stay away from illegal drugs and go waste money on their cigarettes and that tobacco junk. What's so great about that stuff anyway? I wish that all drugs were illegal, except for medicine, but I know that will never happen. I'll just have to continue to deal with walking past people who are smoking and accidentally breathe that nasty stuff in and start coughing trying to get rid of the smell. I've always been against drugs and I always will be. If all drugs were legal, our country will start going down the tubes and then we'll end up like Mexico.

gamerforlifeforever2 : Interestingly enough, many believe that crack and crystal meth came to be BECAUSE of the War on Drugs. Since making something illegal does not make the vice disappear. So people look for cheap alternatives...

As for your interrogation about why people use drugs: it is beyond me too. I have never as much as smoked a cigarette. Ever. But considering how much information there is about drugs and their effects, I guess some people just do not care about long-term affects of their short-term pleasures.

But who are we to protect people against themselves? Prohibition was an utter failure because it criminalized behaviors among consenting adults. If alcohol and tobacco, which bring ABSOLUTELY NO benefit to the body, are legal why are not drugs like marijuana, which DOES serve a medical purpose? Cocaine? Heroin?